


Refusal

by I_dont_know_whats_going_on_either



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:01:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26933302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_dont_know_whats_going_on_either/pseuds/I_dont_know_whats_going_on_either
Summary: This was sitting in my drafts so I thought that I would share it.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Refusal

Marinette is used to refusing things by now. She’s had a long time to get accustomed to it.

She’s used to refusing to go along with Lila’s lies.

Especially when they are such awful lies, to begin with. _No, I will not believe Jagged had a cat when I know that he is allergic._

And now she isn’t alone. Adrien had told her to take the high road, that her lies weren’t hurting anyone even though it was hurting her. She supposed that she wasn’t anyone to Adrien. But she took his advice if only because she had given him her word and she was not about to go back on it like the liar in her class would.

Nino and Kim, her childhood best friends had come to her side. But boy, did it cost them.

Nino lost Alya. The girl claimed that she couldn’t date someone so close to a bully, and the irony of that statement was lost on her completely.

Kim lost Alix and Max. His best friends for a long time didn’t believe in Marinette, and by extension didn’t believe in him.

And of course, they both lost the class. The three of them all sat on one bench in the very back of the class because they knew that if one of them sat by another classmate they wouldn’t survive it completely. Between the verbal and physical harassment that Marinette endured whenever she was alone with the class, Nino and Kim knew that the same would happen to them as well.

Marinette always feels horrible when she sees the class harassing the two boys. She hates how the class treats them that way because of her.

Once she watched Alya try and convince Nino to come back. She said that she understood that he just wanted to stick close to enemies, but that he didn’t have to worry about anything. Nino had stayed dead silent, the tell that he was angry, and Kim and Marinette had had to get him out of the situation before he retaliated.

But Nino and Kim refuse to go along with Lila’s lies too.

“How can she say that she knows Jagged Stone personally, when he was literally at your house last weekend.”

Which was true. A family dinner that Marinette had invited her two friends to had had Jagged Stone and his girlfriend Penny as guests as well.

Nino and Kim had been shell shocked at first, but they had eventually been able to get over it and enjoy the night with the rock star, who was basically Marinette’s uncle, and the rest of Marinette’s family.

“You would never steal a design, I’ve seen you when your at it, everything you make is your hard work.”

And that was also true. The rest of the class didn’t know the full extent of it, but Kim and Nino did. They have had to drag from her bedroom back into the real world before.

They’ve seen her when her mind is coated in cloth and she can’t think beyond her design. When her emotions, on the rare occasions when she can feel in the state she’s in, are turned into fabric colors and her pencil is used until it’s a stub. They’ve spent hours in that room making themselves apart of her surroundings so that they can finally get Marinette away from her sewing machine.

“She can’t be Ladybug’s best friend, you hate her.”

She’s used to refusing Chat Noir.

When his visits to her house make her feel sick because all he does is talk about how Ladybug and he are ‘destined’ to be together. When a battle reveals more than an Akuma and a fight. It reveals flirting and pickup lines. Needling to _Just tell me your identity! I won’t tell anyone, I swear._

But Marinette will not tell him her identity, no matter what he swears, no matter what God he promises to. But that doesn’t stop him from trying to figure her out.

She’s had to learn to be fast. To exit when Chat is doing something or else he’ll try to follow her home. Chat may be determined but he’s to polite to drop whatever he’s doing. Marinette knows eventually she won’t be able to count on that politeness. He’ll try to be silent but Marinette knows that he’s there, the same way she knows that Alya is. They both lurk in the shadows, waiting to get exactly what they want; Ladybugs identity or Chat and her together.

She’ll turn around and say “Enough is enough Chat. Stop following me.”

“M’lady I’m hurt that you think I’m following you. I’m just going home.” He’ll respond, stepping out from behind the chimney. Dropping out of the tree. Jumping up from the alleyway.

And Marinette will feel bad. She mentally hits herself in the head because, _Bad Marinette! You can’t just accuse everyone of having bad intentions. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!_

But when she turns around to continue her way home, she can see Chat Noir in the corner of her eye turning and going a different way. Giving up only because he had been caught.

Marinette makes it to her own home and de-transforms on a good day. A day where there aren’t classmates surrounding the bakery demanding to be let in because Tom and Sabine are keeping them out. A day where Chat does stop following her and Marinette doesn't have to fly right over her own house to try and shake him.

Marinette is used to refusing to sleep.

Sometimes Tikki suspects that the girl suffers from nightmares. She watches as Marinette mumbles to herself and kicks off the blankets on the few nights Tikki can convince her to lay down and rest. But she doesn’t know the horrors that occupy Marinette’s sleeping hours.

Tikki doesn’t know that on the back of her chosens eyelids the girl is forced to watch as Chat is akumatized into Chat Blanc. She is forced to watch as he kills her friends in front of her.

Marinette will spend her nights doing anything she can possibly think of. Her parents sleep like the dead, so it isn’t to hard to go downstairs and do something, but she still mostly stays in her room.

Marinette has spent hours deep cleaning her room in silence. Some nights she designs like she doesn’t have tomorrow to live and other times she sits up with coffee to drink and homework to complete.

But on the nights where she can’t take it anymore, and she just needs some sort of rest. The nights that Tikki begs the bluenette to _Just lay down for a little while_. The nights where Marinette can no longer keep her eyes open, and the coffee doesn’t affect the bone-tired feeling thats wrapped her up.

But it’s never so simple as just sleeping.

At night she claws at restraints she can’t see, chokes on the sheets that seem to shove themselves down her throat making it so hard to just breath.

She’ll wake up a few hours after she fell asleep and be forced to remember the terrible nightmare that her mind had concocted. The horrible sight of _Oh Kwami, are her friends ok?_ She’ll wake up and have to restrain herself from calling them.

She’ll get to school and walk back to her desk where Nino and Kim are smiling at her.

Kim will say his customary “Morning Mari!” in his chipper voice and Marinette will blink and see Roi Singe; chest unmoving, Miraculous gone, blood trickling down his forehead. She’ll shake her head in an attempt to get rid of the image and than she’ll be forced to see Kim with the same afflictions.

Nino will spring up and guide her to her seat and ask her “Why are you so pale?” Question her quietly so that only the three of them can here about “Did something happen at home? Did something happen with Chat?”

She’ll shake her head and give a reassuring smile, but when she turns to look at Nino all she sees is Carapace; knife in his heart, wrist bloody and empty, rips in his suit, googles lifted up so that she can see the horrible terrible dark coldness of his eyes.

She’ll close her eyes quickly hoping to block out the images, even though it hardly helps, and puts her forehead on the desk. She assures them once again that she’s perfectly fine in her quiet voice, even as the images of Chat Blanc killing her friends plays in her mind over and over and Hawkmoth’s laughter rings in her ears. She stays like that, head on the desk trying to block out the world, until the teacher walks in and class begins. Not daring to look back over at her friends, although she can feel them exchanging worried glances over her head, because they know about how messed up her sleep schedule is but they know nothing of the nightmares.

Marinette is used to refusing to die.

Because everyone has bad days. Right?

On a bad day, she can’t go home and de-transform. On a bad day, Chat is hit by a mind control Akuma again, because Hawk Moth seems to understand that he’s getting somewhere with those.

On a bad day, a mind-controlled Chat will beat her senseless with his fists, his feet, his baton. He’ll hold her from high places and simply drop her, dropping her yo-yo a second later so that she can’t use it to catch herself. He’ll choke her slowly until she almost loses consciousness and then let her free so that they can keep playing his sickening game of cat and mouse.

But on the worst days, a cataclysm will hit her.

On those bad days, she’ll go to Kim or Nino’s house, whichever is closer, and she’ll drop her transformation and collapse because _The Miraculous Cure can’t heal me from the damage of the black cat._ They’ll follow Tikki’s guidance with shaky hands and wrap up Marinette’s wounds if she’s bleeding or try and soothe her bruises if that’s all she has. Even if those bruises are so dark they make a grape look like a light purple.

They tell themselves that _She’s fine. She’s Marinette, and Marinette does whatever she puts her mind to._ But deep down they know that eventually, she will die for real.

She’ll lay there, eyes closed as Tikki nervously flits around her. Worried that _Maybe this is it. Maybe Marinette can’t refuse any longer. Maybe my precious bug is finally dead._

The first time it happened, when Marinette stumbled into one of the only places she felt safe, Tikki had to explain it to the boys. “When faced with death the dying person is met with such peace that it’s overwhelming. That the closer you are to death the more peaceful you feel. The more ‘ok’ with dying you are. But Marinette is in a rare few that can refuse that peaceful sense. That can break right through it and refuse to die.”

Because Marinette knows that the Ladybug Miraculous is a death sentence. Known since Tikki told her chosen the stories of her past holders. Marinette listened about how all of them died in battle still wearing the earrings, still wrapped up in Tikki’s magic and she knows that if she doesn't refuse she will have the same fate.

So she clings to life with all the strength she has left because: _I will not let anyone else take this burden to die._ The words becoming her Mantra, one that she repeats over and over to herself as she drags herself back into the living world.

Yes, she knows that the second the earrings are taken from her body she will die, but that isn’t gonna stop her from giving her all while she still can.

She’ll go to Master Fu’s for her guardian training and whenever a new Kwami comes out of the box they will look at her sadly and ask her how many times and Master Fu will sit there confused because _How many times of what?_

And Marinette answers with a long tired sigh. She looks down at the ground and will pick at the carpet for a moment before answering with the ever-climbing number and the Kwami will rush forward to hug her cheek because _How in the world can someone refuse that many times?_

But she won’t stop at whatever that number is at the time. She’ll stop when Hawkmoth is gone. When there isn’t a threat to Paris anymore.

The Kwami will tell her to talk to Chat before Marinette leaves to go back home, to try and get him to see reason. And she’ll agree and try, even though she knows it won’t get her anywhere.

On patrol when the two Miraculous wielders meet up at their spot at the Eiffel tower she will plead with him to stop getting hit by the Akumas that mind control him against her.

“What’s the problem with doing it?” Chat will ask, pure confusion on his face.

“You cause a lot of damage, Chat!” Marinette will barely say in a normal tone, because she wants to shout it at him, to scream it from the rooftops. And Marinette wants to shout for joy a second later because _Chat looks like he’s finally getting it._

“But the Miraculous Cure fixes everything.” He argues, his voice rising, his tone exasperated as if Marinette is the one who isn’t understanding. As if Marinette is the one causing problems.

_And we’re back to square one_ , She’ll think but to be back to square one you would have to leave it first. Sometimes she thinks that the square is more of a box that’s trapping her inside of it.

And the Miraculous Cure does fix everything for him because Marinette doesn’t let the public or Chat ever see otherwise.

Where the Miraculous Cure sweeps over her doing its best to help whatever it can, but it just can’t do anything. Where it feels more like a burning feeling where the Ladybugs try so hard to heal her, instead of the warm tingly feeling that others have described it as. Where Marinette is thankful for her red costume because _When the costume is already red, people don’t notice the blood unless you stay too long._ And Marinette makes sure to never stay too long on those days, always leaving before someone can notice that one or two of her spots were lost in the expanse of red.

Marinette will lay in Kim or Nino’s room and whoever she is with will call the other.

“Marinette just crashed dude, get over here.”

Then they’ll take her phone from her and they’ll text Sabine as her asking _Can I stay the night with Kim and Nino?_ She always says yes, and the three of them suspect that Sabine thinks Marinette is in a relationship with one of them even though the three are siblings in all but blood. But they all know that genetics isn’t the only thing that makes a family.

So Marinette will lay there, unmoving, with Tikki just sitting on her chest, her chest which is barely moving to take in air, over her heart, which is beating to softly. Tikki doesn’t sleep until she knows her chosens fate. She’ll be like that for hours until finally, Marinette wakes up.

Kim and Nino will be on either side of her, asleep, making sure that she is protected and safe in their own cuddle cocoon. Her breath will stutter into big full breaths and Tikki will immediately fly so that Marinette can see her from her laying down position and ask quietly if she’s alright and I _f there’s anything I can do for her just to let me know._

Marinette will nod and Tikki will settle back down in her spot and relish in the full breaths and the strong heartbeat because _This is the first holder I’ve had that’s refused death so many times._

Marinette will fall back asleep because after refusing to die she’s always to tired to dream and in the morning when the boys wake up they will panic because _Is Marinette dead this time? Why is she still asleep? Shouldn’t she be awake by now?_

Tikki will rush up to them and assure them that her holder is fine. Encourages them to look at the deep breaths that the blue-haired girl is making.

A moment later and Marinette wakes up, to two boys who look like they just had a panic attack and she’ll feel guilty for making them go through that, but they’re all she has. She’ll pull them into a fierce hug and look them directly into their eyes and thank them with the sincerity one would say “Chat wears leather.”

Marinette will go to school the next day and pretend that nothing happened. Wear long sleeves to cover up all the bruises she can and all other she explains away as falling over somewhere. The class that used to sympathize with her clumsiness now pushes her over to make it worse.

She’ll stand up with her nice straight posture and pretend that it doesn’t feel like she broke her spine ten different ways and hold back the scream when someone shoves her from behind.

She’ll sit in her seat, in her Kim and Nino sandwich because they just want to protect her, and she’ll pretend that her stomach isn’t screaming at her where there are three large claw marks, still an angry red that would put her spandex costume to shame. Three large claw marks that are inches away from another set.

And when the next Akuma comes she will wince and Nino will plead with her quietly to just bring in Carapace, that _I can protect you from him_. But she’ll just as quietly say no because she blames herself for not being strong enough to deal with it on her own. And if there’s a chance that she will get hurt then there’s an even higher chance that Nino would.

“I’m sorry Nino,” She’ll say. “But I can’t do that.”

And he’ll plead with her to rethink her decision, to just give him a chance and that if something goes wrong he’ll back off from asking. He’ll beg her to just let him try.

But Marinette is stubborn, just like her mother, and once she makes her decision she very rarely ever changes her opinion. It doesn’t help that she has the images from her dreams playing in her mind. Nino and Kim try to outweigh her with both of their stubborn and protective ways, but Marinette never budges.

So she goes in alone to the fight and prays to Nooroo, because maybe he has some control over the Akuma, _Please don't let it be a mind control Akuma. Please don't let it be a mind control Akuma. Please don't let it be a mind control Akuma._ And the cycle starts all over again.

Marinette is used to refusing.

She is.


End file.
